Their Efforts often Fall Foul of Being Exclusively Centered on Raising English Proficiency

These days the common vision for Korean universities goes global. Being ranked higher on the Science Index or the Times’ World’s Best University listing has become more important than ever. These two goals are relatively easy.

Pestering professors to have their journals and articles published more often may help them to be ranked higher on scientific or other academic indices; while recruiting more professors and building another superb lecture complex would guarantee them being listed higher on any world’s best university type listing.

But it’s not very easy when it comes to making your students globally competitive. You can’t send all of them abroad as doing so would cost a fortune and you can’t force your students to reconstruct daily routines to be more exposed to the global setting unless they have already attempted to do so.

The most typical and traditional way of making students globally competitive has been sending them on student exchange programs. But despite the effectiveness of this, opportunities tend to be limited to a small number of students, as both students and universities usually share financial burdens and mutual exchange of students between universities is a basic condition for the programs.

Also, a semester or two worth of exposure is always less than enough. And it is so common among universities to have a competitive edge in attracting students. Several universities went further to adapt a dual-diploma policy in which you get two degrees: one from a local Korean university and one from abroad. For example, Sookmyung Women’s University has such a program in collaboration with a number of universities including American University in the United States.

But many universities are reluctant to do so as they fear it would hurt their authority. Another way is to send them abroad over the summer. Seoul National University two years ago signed an agreement with Yale University to have their students study on Yale campus in New Haven, Connecticut.

This year, the University of Seoul is also starting such summer programs taking place in several schools in Japan, China, the United Kingdom and the United States. But the problem is that it is too expensive, compared to its perceived effectiveness as it costs more than a year’s worth of tuition fees at the local university.

So the University of Seoul didn’t have enough applicants when it recruited students for its summer programs. A more recent, and probably successful, development is having an international summer school on campus in Korea. Korea University last year introduced this type of program and had huge success.

It invited renowned scholars from prestigious universities from around the world including Princeton University and UCLA. Not only professors but also students came from abroad to study in Korea at an extremely competitive rate. The program at Korea University, open to local students from other universities cost 400,000 won for six-weeks and was worth 6 credits.

Kyunghee University decided to have a summer program in Seoul on East Asian Studies and Global Governance this summer. All the instructors are going to come from the University of Pennsylvania, one of the Ivy League schools in the United States.

Korean universities are also introducing a specific location on campus where students must only speak in English. The University of Seoul decided to introduce an English-language cafe in the newly expanded Liberal Arts Building which is scheduled to open at the end of 2007. Other universities have a similar space.

For example, Sungkyunkwan University has E-plus Global Zone, Yonsei University, Global Lounge and Chung-Ang University, E-lounge. But this has shortcomings as universities can’t enforce a realistic and effective penalty on students as going to these places is up to the students.

Having more English-language lectures is what school administrators are pushing for. Recently the Korea Times ran an article about the pressure both professors and students feel over the English-language lectures because it’s more demanding for professors to prepare the class and use English only when their command of English is not very good.

Also, students are stressed over interpreting English textbooks and understanding the poor English of their professors. Korea University went a little further. When it pushed to have English-language classes comprise 50% of all classes by 2010, humanities majors including Korean History and Korean Language were no exception.

Professors from these departments publicly showed their dissatisfaction as they generally have not been educated abroad and insist that western perspectives would inevitably be reflected a great deal when they teach Korean literature and history with English textbooks. English has become the center of university education when it was supposed to be a mere tool.

Although Korean universities have every reason to stress the importance of English, it is not without consequences. Many universities now require students to have above a certain score in order to graduate. And, other opportunities are also given to those who speak English well.

For example, the University of Seoul has now ruled that students must have above a certain score in order to get any type of scholarship. Also, it decided the English score should constitute 50% of requirements, along with the latter half of the GPA, in deciding who is to be selected to stay in its newly built dorm. It creates another problem because chances to improve their English are mostly given to those who are better English speakers.

Cho Se-mi, an independent international consultant for human resource management, recently visited Korea. She used to work at well-known global firms such as McKinsey & Company, Booz Allen Hamilton, Heidrick & Struggles. She knows about Korean talent better than anyone as she led McKinsey’s 1997 project to discover hidden Korean talent and contributed to “The War for Talent,” its latest book on global competition over human resources.

“I regret Korea’s obsession over English proficiency.” Ms. Cho said in her interview with Chosun Ilbo, a Korean daily which has the largest circulation in Korea. “The topnotch global firms aren’t exactly looking for people who can speak English at the native-speaker level. They are looking for people who can present and objectify their ideas logically.

At first I was stressed out over my relatively poor English but I found most people working in these global firms are from all over the world and they speak English in their own ways. It is ideas and logic that matter the most.

If you speak English very well, but you can’t present your ideas and make them happen, English means nothing.” Korean universities and students who are rather obsessed with English had better take her advice as it comes from one who knows what constitutes global competitiveness better than any Korean.
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